"No, my seat is not at the other end," he said. "My seat is this seat. You may sit at the other end."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Is this a joke?"

"You're beginning to annoy me," he said.

We were at the dinner table. The dinner table in his house. He is almost 80 years old. For my entire life, at the dinner table he has always sat with his back to the window, looking into the room. No one was ever allowed to sit in his chair.

Now he was telling me that his chair is the one facing the window-the one at the other end of the table.

"When did this happen?" I said.

"When did what happen?" he said.

"When did you change chairs?" I said.

"About two years ago, if it's any concern of yours," he said.

"That's not true," I said. "I was here visiting you last 4th of July, and you still were sitting in the regular chair."

"I am not going to have this conversation," he said.

Some people think that the Republican takeover of the Congress was the biggest change in the last year. Some people think that various political unheavals around the world were the biggest change. To me, those are minor. A big change is when your father, after a lifetime of dinners, decides to change his chair at the table.

"Why did you change your chair?" I said.

"I don't have to answer that," he said.

"Please," I said. "I have to know."

"I changed because I wanted a change," he said.

"You wanted a change," I said. "For your entire life you refuse to sit anywhere but in the chair looking away from the window. And then one day you decide you don't like that chair."

"Do I have to listen to this?" he said to my mother.

Before she could answer, I noticed that she was sitting in a different place at the table, too-on the same side she always sat, but closer to his new chair.

"So you had to move, too?" I said to her.

"I didn't have to move," she said. "I chose to move."

"You're on the same side as always," I said. "But you're farther down the table."

"That's so we can talk to each other," she said.

"You realize something, don't you?" I said to my father. "Your whole adult life you have turned your head to the right to talk to her. Now you have to turn your head to the left."

"I'm ending this conversation," he said.

"Seriously," I said. "For all these years at dinner you've talked to her left profile. Now all of a sudden you want to get used to talking to her right profile?"

The Toby jugs are porcelain figurines in the shape of people's faces. They're actually pretty ugly. My father and mother have had them in the dining rooms of the houses where they've lived all of their adult lives. My father could always look at them at dinner. Now they were behind him.

"How do you know they're there if you can't see them?" I said.

"Stop asking questions," he said.

"Why would you not want to look at the Toby jugs?" I said.

"I've seen the Toby jugs," he said. "That white one, of Winston Churchill-that was the first one we bought. During the war."

I looked behind him. The Winston Churchill Toby jug was, indeed, on the bottom shelf of the cabinet.

"Even on Bryden Road," I said. "Even in the old house. You sat with your back to the window, and you could see the Toby jugs. It was a different window-but you never let anyone sit in your chair, just so you could look away from the window."

"So?" he said.

"So?" I said. "So? So you want me to just sit here and not wonder about this?"

"No, I don't want you to sit here," he said. "I want you to sit there."

There. Down at the other end of the dinner table. With my back to the window.